The premium edition of Windows Vista for businesses, Windows Vista Enterprise includes all the features in Windows Vista Business plus extra capabilities designed to help reduce the cost and complexity of deploying and managing corporate PCs. Windows Vista Enterprise provides higher levels of data protection, easier application management, and improved standardization for global operations. Also, Windows Vista Enterprise offers stronger data protection for a growing, mobile workforce, including more protection of sensitive data in the event a mobile PC is lost or stolen. Windows Vista Enterprise gives your business an advantage by empowering your most valuable asset—people. The operating system makes it easy for people to communicate, collaborate, and work with greater efficiency and effectiveness, regardless of their location. And Windows Vista Enterprise enhances your organization's ability to find, use, and secure data, meet complex regulatory requirements, and manage information technology costs. Windows Vista Enterprise is the heart of any competitive organization's IT desktop investment. Benefits of the operating system: Organizations face increasing concerns around intellectual property and sensitive data being compromised on a lost, stolen, or recycled computer. To address this issue, Windows Vista Enterprise includes Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption, a new technology that helps prevent sensitive data and intellectual property from falling into the wrong hands. Windows BitLocker uses hardware-enabled full-volume data encryption technology that gives you greater peace of mind knowing that your corporate intellectual property is safer and will remain your strategic asset. Also, because the entire Windows volume is encrypted, Windows BitLocker reduces the cost associated with decommissioning old PCs. Watch the video. Learn more about Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption. Organizations have to factor in the potential cost and complexity of application compatibility issues when they consider a new desktop operating system. In addition to Application Compatibility toolkit available to all customers, Windows Vista Enterprise includes built-in tools to improve application compatibility with previous versions of Microsoft operating systems, as well as with UNIX operating systems. These tools help you take advantage of the unique capabilities provided by Windows Vista even if you are unable to easily migrate a legacy application to the new operating system. With Windows Vista Enterprise, you may install up to four copies of the operating system in a virtual machine for a single user on a single device. This enables you to run a legacy application in a virtual environment on top of Windows Vista Enterprise. This benefit, coupled with the free availability of Virtual PC, provides Windows Vista Enterprise customers with the most economical means to address application compatibility and other related scenarios using virtualization. Also, to ease interoperability between Windows and UNIX, Windows Vista Enterprise includes Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications (SUA). SUA enables you to run UNIX applications unchanged on a Windows Vista Enterprise–based PC. Whereas today a UNIX database administrator or system administrator needs to have a UNIX workstation in addition to a Windows-based PC, Windows Vista Enterprise enables you to consolidate both functions into a single Windows Vista-based PC. Watch the video. Microsoft has also developed the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) 5.0. Available for free download, this toolkit helps customers understand their application compatibility situation by identifying which applications are compatible with the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system and which require further testing. ACT gives the IT professional a single environment to work with their application compatibility issues, and the tools to effectively analyze, test and mitigate issues with applications before deploying Windows Vista. Watch the video.
Windows Vista Enterprise customers that subscribe to the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance have additional options for minimizing application compatibility challenges. This service can accelerate deployment with tools such as Microsoft SoftGrid for application virtualization, which can reduce application-to-application conflicts, and with Asset Inventory Services, to help you more quickly compile information about applications running inside your organization. Watch the video. An interface language controls which language a user sees in the Windows Start menu, in the help system, in built-in management tools, and in Windows dialog boxes. In the past, Windows was offered in different versions for different languages, so organizations operating worldwide faced the burden of managing multiple desktop images for each hardware type and language supported. Today, Windows Vista Enterprise includes all available interface languages in one offering. This enables organizations to build a single deployment image that can be used worldwide, and to deploy individual PCs that simultaneously offer different interface languages for different users. The Multilingual User Interface (MUI) feature helps you save a significant amount of time as you prepare to deploy the new operating system as well as lower the total cost to deploy and maintain new images. DVD functionality in the enterprise has become a growing necessity. Whether it is corporate sales and marketing tools on DVD or training videos for customers and employees, the use of DVD formats in the corporate world continues to grow. To accommodate the growing need of this media in the enterprise, Microsoft is offering the DVD Playback Pack for Windows Vista Enterprise and Windows Vista Business. The Playback Pack allows users to play DVD, MPEG-2, and Dolby 5.1 content. The combination of Windows Vista Enterprise or Windows Vista Business and the DVD Playback Pack is the most manageable version of Windows with the best media experience for the enterprise. Windows Vista Ultimate is not designed for broad enterprise deployment and should be used for conference and training rooms only. DVD Playback Pack for Windows Vista is designed to be used by IT professionals and should only be distributed as part of an operating system image. DVD Playback Pack is available through the Microsoft Volume Licensing division. For more information on ordering DVD Playback Pack, visit Microsoft Volume Licensing. Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) is the complete set of Windows Vista updates Microsoft has issued over the past year plus additional enhancements to improve your PC experience. SP1 doesn't add new features or require you to learn anything new—it simply makes your PC more reliable, run more smoothly, and even more enjoyable to use, all at no charge.
With the release of SP1, Windows Vista Enterprise improves security through enhancements to Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption, which now protects all local drives in addition to the Windows partition. Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption also now allows authentication via USB, PIN, and TPM at the same time.
Further, hardware and software partners have worked extensively with Microsoft to help improve the Windows Vista experience. These partners have updated more applications to be compatible with Windows Vista, delivered new device drivers, and ensured that most new devices and software programs are compatible with Windows Vista.
These efforts have significantly improved application compatibility since the initial release of Windows Vista, with new support from over 160 Global Enterprise applications. Now, 10 times more applications have achieved Certified for Windows Vista or Works with Windows Vista logo status. The NPD Group reports that 98 of the top 100 applications now work with Windows Vista. With the release of SP1, Microsoft and its partners have joined efforts to make Windows Vista even more effective at helping organizations optimize their desktop infrastructures, reduce TCO, and increase agility. Experience Windows Vista today and discover what it can do for you and your organization. For more information on Windows Vista SP1, select one of the links below: | 
